Crock Pot Rice

Well, this week has not been a good one for me, food-wise. I screwed up a couple of different meals in minor ways. One not-so-minor. But I am getting ahead of myself. Because we decided to go ahead and start house-shopping, as well as be good citizens and pay our taxes, as well as be good consumers and buy stuff, as well as be good debtors and pay for things we owe money on … and so forth … we are on a strict budget right now. And when I say strict, I mean … well, we’re not buying anything. Nothing. Not at all. This brings the idea of “budget gourmet” to a whole new level.

So I’m trying to make-do with what we have in the house. Normally not an issue for me. However, I’m starting to run out of ideas. So yesterday afternoon I got the brilliant (?) idea to make rice in the crock-pot. I hate making rice, even though it’s really cheap, because it just takes so DANG long. And the pot ends up really nasty with starch when I’m done. So I thought if I put it in the crock-pot and used a liner, this would be great!

Well … here’s an up close photo. See if you can guess what went wrong:

It was a nice try, anyhow.

That’s right – some of the rice cooked up nice and fluffy. And some wasn’t cooked at all. Eww. I don’t know how to fix this, either. I don’t know if I didn’t put enough water in, if I went overboard on the quantity, if I cooked too “low and slow”, if I should have stirred it … so all we can do (sadly) is eat my mistake and try again next time. I think I’ll go with less rice, cooked on high, for less time. That will (hopefully) fix the problem.

Unless someone out there has an idea or a foolproof method? Leave me a comment!

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I got a cheapo rice cooker and do it that way most of the time. I’ve never tried a crock pot. The only other way I know to speed it up is to do it pilaf style, where you saute the rice in some oil for a few minutes before adding the liquid. It cuts the remaining cooking time down some.

I’ve thought about buying a rice cooker. Sadly, though, right now we don’t have the money for one and with moving, I don’t know if we’ll have the space for one either. I’d love to get by with only a couple of actually necessary appliances.